As we all know, Beyonce is a leading authority on jiggling her bottom around and shouting about how much she hates men.

But apparently Beyonce also sings. It’s news to us – we thought the music on that Single Ladies video was merely a backing accompaniment so that Beyonce could keep time while she attempted to repeatedly poke our eyes out with her pelvic floor.

However, Beyonce’s reputation as a singer has been sorely dented by a fake leaked soundboard feed, since it essentially makes her sound like the Star Trek theme tune played on a xylophone made out of cats.

Let’s be perfectly straight for a moment. Beyonce can sing. If Beyonce couldn’t sing then Barack Obama would have never asked her to perform at his inauguration ball. That’s unless Barack Obama likes to celebrate momentous events in his life by listening to noises that sound like a burning coachload old ladies being flung down an elevator shaft. Which, in retrospect, might explain Aretha Franklin’s confusing performance at the inauguration too.

But we’re getting off-topic here. The point is that Beyonce can sing, because Destiny’s Child only had room for one substandard singer, and that was the woman with the face like a shoebox. Beyonce can sing. She can.

All that was thrown into doubt, though, by the leak of something purported to be a live soundboard mix of Beyonce singing If I Were A Boy on the Today show last year. Take a listen…

The bad news is that the tape’s a hoax. We’re just as disappointed as you, we promise. There’s nothing we’d like more than to tell you that Beyonce sings like the soundtrack to Don’t Look Now played backwards on a broken accordion – if nothing else it would have proved that there’s more to her than facial staircase injuries and the ability to cause nationwide epileptic fitting – but it’s just not to be. Still, full props to Beyonce and her dad for being all outraged about it and whatever. MTV reports:

“Of course I’m just hearing about this today — and I haven’t heard it but it sounds completely ridiculous,” Beyoncé said. “Everyone’s heard me sing.”… Mathew Knowles: “At 12 years into her career, the last thing someone should be questioning is her vocal ability. That would be like questioning if Kobe Bryant could shoot a jump shot. The vocals were obviously altered.”

It just goes to show that, as cool as technology is, it’s still not good enough to convince anyone that Beyonce is a bad singer. And, for that reason, we don’t want anyone to try and digitally insert Beyonce into a film that’s actually enjoyable to watch. If we won’t buy that she’s a bad singer, there isn’t a hope in hell that we’d believe the poor girl can act.

You! Follow hecklerspray on Twitter!